He'll Crush You
by The Assassin's Pen
Summary: "When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you." Four years after The Force Awakens Kylo Ren has outlived his usefulness. It's a foggy morning on a cool forest moon when Rey finds his body. A story focused on redemption and a mother's unconditional love. T for injuries and source material, no character death.
1. A Disturbance

Han's unconditional love and Leia's longing were two of my favorite things in the new movie. Kylo Ren getting a redemption story is my other favorite, so here we are. I had this idea at work when thinking about what would happen if Snoke really did just crush Kylo when he was done with him.

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They were hiding out on a forest moon when Rey found Kylo Ren's body wreathed in white flowers. He was laying on his side in a crumpled heap of black and pale skin, his long hair ragged and covering most of his face. All she could see was his jaw and parted lips, too white and completely still. She slowly approached, almost unable to believe what she was seeing. It had been years since she'd first met and clashed with Solo's estranged child, but since then they'd crossed blades at more and more crossroads, each growing stronger when apart.

In the four years since she'd first struck him with Luke's saber she'd matured into a strong young Jedi, and at each new encounter she'd been able to sense the raw power coursing through him, heating his blood, fueling his very life. The force flowed in and through every living thing—it was true—but most living things had a sort of grey that sustained them. The dark and the light. Kylo had plunged himself so deep into the dark that it had consumed his soul and gave vitality to his very heartbeat.

So why was his body laying broken and lifeless only a few miles from their base? What had happened to him? She crouched in the dewy grass, cool, white petals brushing her legs as she reached out a hesitant hand to brush the hair away from his face. He was damp with dew and the skin under her fingers was near as cold and white as the snowdrop flowers forming his coffin. The scar she'd given him so long ago was the only flush left in his elegantly strung body. She swallowed, a host of emotions following the questions that crossed her mind as she regarded him.

The last time they'd fought he'd been so fierce, so humming with power that she sensed he was going to burn himself out. He would build and build and build until he collapsed on himself and became a burst of violent light that fell into the void of a black hole. This—this was no such magnificent end. He was broken and abandoned, apparently having taken his last breaths with no one to witness. His tall build and warrior's physique prevented the 'small' illusion death often cast over her victims, but it only made the sight more pitiful. Cruel and twisted though he had been, it was all too apparent that this was a man struck down in the very prime of his life.

She wondered if that's what she'd felt earlier when she'd woken up in a sweat, grasping at her sheets. She'd sat there for a full minute trying to understand the sensation and then spent a good hour after meditating to try and locate its source. It was a disturbance in the force unlike anything she'd ever felt before, and it was what had driven her out to explore the base's surroundings in the foggy morning. She cupped his scarred cheek, studying his lax features and realizing that what she'd felt was the moment his heart gave up its struggle and ceased beating.

She felt suddenly guilty for leaving the base as early as she had. If she'd felt Kylo's death surely Leia had as well. She swallowed, an ache coming to her heart not for the dead murderer at her feet but for his mother and the broken heart she must surely be carrying now that her son would never come home. That was one of Rey's greatest inspirations towards compassion and patience with the light side of the force—Leia's absolute, irrevocable love for her child.

"What happened to you, Kylo?" she murmured, turning his head and then pressing gently against his shoulder to roll him onto his back. His hand fell away from his body with the shift and the charred, ruined hilt of his saber fell from it and into the grass. She picked it up and studied it, then the hand that had been cradling it against his chest. His hand was burned badly and the hilt was warped and cracked beyond repair. She thumbed through the wreckage and red dust fell into the dirt. His saber hadn't just been damaged, it had exploded. Further burns up his arm and the damaged front of his robes told the same story. She looked up and a slight frown creased her brows. Something dark was lingering just under his jaw. Carefully, she tugged his collar down. What she saw shocked her so much she drew a startled breath and pulled her hand away, her wide eyes fixed on the damage.

 _He's just using you for your power! When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you._

Han's words came echoing back from across the years as Rey reached out a hand to touch the violent bruising marring Kylo's throat. This was not done by the force. This was done by hands. Someone had taken Kylo by the throat and squeezed both hands around his neck, choking the life out of him. Afraid of what she'd see and yet morbidly curious, she worked quickly to undo the clasps holding the front of his tunic together. When she finally got through his layers she swallowed, feeling vaguely sick. Kylo was her enemy, his death was in some ways a relief if she was being completely honest with herself, but no one deserved this. Not even Han's killer.

His ribcage had been broken. Whoever had done this, be it Snoke himself or some other assailant (Though Rey couldn't imagine anyone taking Kylo down like this except his own master), he'd crushed Kylo in a very literal sense.

"What did you do to incite his anger?" she asked, carefully closing the cloth back over his broken body. She fastened the ties with a sad reverence, realizing how far she'd come in the light side since their first encounter. She still struggled with hate towards him, but seeing him now, she realized the real tragedy was that he never got the chance to come back. The relief of having him out of the picture was dampened by the grief of his loss.

Leia. She had to get him back to Leia. One way or another, she deserved to look on her son one final time and bury or burn him on her own terms.

Chewing on her lip and sitting back on her haunches, Rey glanced at her speeder and then back at Kylo's body. He was heavy but she was strong and getting him onto the speeder wouldn't be too difficult. She'd have to hold onto him for the whole ride though, and the thought of cradling his corpse all the way back to base made her uneasy. She'd do it though, for Leia's sake.

She took his ruined lightsaber and clipped it next to her own, bracing herself and calling on the force to help her lift him. She could throw him over her shoulder, but his chest was damaged enough as it was and she didn't want his body in any worse shape. Bridal style it would have to be, and that was harder. She worked one arm under his shoulders and was about to pull him up so she could place the other under his knees when something struck her in the force and made her pause. She frowned, pulling Kylo up a little firmer so he was resting against her chest, cradled in the crook of her arm. His head was leaning against her shoulder when she reached her free hand and passed it over his face, apprehension and disbelief clouding her mind.

 _The force runs through every living thing._ Luke's voice came back to her as she stared down at the man in her arms. _Every living thing. Living. Kylo_.

She'd felt the barest, static flicker of the force inside him. The force did not remain with a body. That's all bodies were—vessels-and the force had nothing to do with them once they were empty. Thing was, she was suddenly very afraid and near convinced that Kylo's wasn't empty. Not yet. She looked at him with new horror, reaching down to grip his cold wrist in search of a pulse. She couldn't feel one and didn't dare check his throat amidst all the swelling, so she bowed her head and very gently pressed her ear to his chest. She closed her eyes and focused, feeling with all her might for that brush she'd felt before.

She heard nothing but silence for a long time, but when she made herself relax and just listen, listen for the force, listen for his heartbeat, she heard both. Her breath caught and she shifted her head, listening harder even as she slipped her hand inside his robe and lay it against the pale flesh of his stomach. He was still warm. Clammy and chilled, but not cold. She'd felt that breaking in the force hours ago. He'd been laying there, barely alive, for hours.

 _Leia,_ she thought, now realizing her mission got a lot harder. She needed to get him home alive, if only so his mother could say goodbye.

"Kylo?" she called, cupping his cheek and realizing now she could hear his shallow, rasping breaths. It would have been almost funny if it wasn't so tragic—he'd wanted to emulate his grandfather in every way possible and now he lay broken and unable to breathe. She knew he wasn't going to wake—he was barely clinging to life as it was—but sometimes using a person's name brought the force to attention inside them, gave them something stronger to fight with.

"Kylo Ren I need you to keep holding on," she said, speaking through the force and into the spark left inside him. It didn't respond, and for a moment she felt disappointed. He wouldn't survive the trip back if she couldn't strengthen what was left. It was as if he'd given up. She chewed her lip again, gazing down at him and trying to decide what to do. It was suddenly so important to her that she return him breathing—

She blinked, realizing suddenly that what she felt inside him wasn't the dark side she'd encountered so many times in their past. The spark that was left truly was a spark—it was a sliver of the light side hanging on. That sliver that had tormented him much of his adult life was now the only thing tethering him. She bent closer to him, gripping his shoulder with her free hand and focusing on that one pure filament glowing weakly in his breast. She bent near his ear and put all of the hope and strength she could into the next word.

"Ben."

The sliver responded, flaring weakly, and she couldn't help her sad smile or the way tears suddenly pooled in her eyes. She remembered Han's death all too clearly, the way he'd called his son's real name and the way Kylo had insisted that part of him was dead. It wasn't. It had never been. Perhaps what she'd felt earlier really was the death of Kylo Ren—but Ben Solo still lived.

"You will live to see your mother again," Rey said, renewed strength helping her lift him carefully and carry him back to the speeder. "You owe her that." She settled him on the speeder and hopped up behind him, making him rest against her chest so she could hold him steady. With the force helping her to steady him and pilot the speeder both, she raced homeward.


	2. A Decision

Holy crap the feedback I've gotten on this story. I'm super happy you guys, thank you so much. For a while the site was being dumb so I had a hard time reading your reviews, but now that I can I'm blown away. I have an idea of where this is going but no longer any real sense of how long it'll be or where I'm going to end it so I appreciate your patience. Also, I polished up the first chapter a little bit (just fixed some minor things) because they were bothering me and I'd written it at some obscene hour of the morning while only partially conscious.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

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She was a hundred yards from the base and still hidden in the trees when she slowed down and realized that this was too difficult a situation to just rush in on. She couldn't just bring Kylo Ren into the middle of their base, especially when his being so close by implied that someone else against them knew where they were and left him for dead on their doorstep. It was too large a chance that luck deposited Kylo so near—in some twisted kind of message this was a warning. If Snoke tried to kill Kylo then Snoke knew where their base was. Why he hadn't attacked yet was beyond Rey, but she knew that if she didn't tread lightly they wouldn't have the slightest chance of finding out.

For her, this was Ben Solo and while that didn't erase her difficulties with him it did give her a reason to hope. She knew the same would stand for Leia, and Poe and Finn would trust them, but beyond that she had no support. Kylo had killed hundreds and terrorized millions, and even though she thought very highly of the resistance fighters she wouldn't put it past a grieving parent or child to slip into the med bay and bump the settings on the bed Kylo would need to recover. It also occurred to Rey that on the very, very, only-Han-Solo-could-ever-pull-this-off chance that Ben's attacker _didn't_ know where they were, bringing him into the base would only give them a beacon to track. If he survived his strength would return and with it his presence in the force. He'd be a way to find them.

She stopped her speeder and adjusted her grip on him, thinking in circles. He needed help. The base could provide that, but how was she going to sneak in a murderer and use their precious resources on him while keeping their location a secret?

She had no idea, until she saw Leia come running across the air field towards her. Tension released in her chest. Leia would know what to do. The older woman was breathless, her eyes brimming with tears as she came to a stop next to Rey's speeder, the shock and wave of mixed emotions clear on her face. She covered her mouth, and Rey could sense worry for her buried in the middle of her shock at seeing Kylo.

"He's alive," Rey said softly as Leia reached up a hand to cup her son's cheek. His head lolled in her hand and Rey eased her grip on him a little. "I just don't know for how long. He's very weak," she added gently.

Leia nodded, her eyes still fixed on Ben's face. She was looking at him like she was seeing Han and her lost child all at once, and Rey had to swallow back her own tears. "I know," she breathed, stroking Ben's cheekbone and pressing a kiss to his forehead. When she let go she was trembling. "I know. Here, let me help you get him down."

Rey worked with Leia to get Ben off of the speeder and onto the mossy forest floor, where Leia cradled him in her arms. Rey wanted to let Leia have time alone with him, but she knew his time was short and if he was going to survive they needed to make a decision— _now_. She crouched down next to the stricken mother, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Leia," she began carefully, wincing internally at Ben's rasping breaths. They were so, so far apart she'd thought he'd stopped breathing several times. Just when she was sure once more that he'd died he struggled through another. "What do you want to do?"

Leia didn't take her eyes off of Ben's face, seemed incapable of doing anything but hold him and stroke his cheek, but Rey knew her better than that. She knew Leia was listening. She knew Leia had heard the morbid question in her words: _Do you want to hold him till he passes, or do you want to try to save him?_

"Go and retrieve a medical droid and a stretcher," Leia responded at last. "We'll figure everything else out when he's inside."

Rey squeezed Leia's shoulder and got up, sprinting the rest of the way to base to do as she was told. Leia was fiercely intelligent. She knew that Ben was a liability. She knew what his presence there meant, probably better than Rey did. But she loved him unconditionally and that meant right now they had to save him.

Finn startled as Rey raced past him, but she didn't stop until she reached the med bay. "I need a hover bed and an emergency medical droid, orders from the General," she said, startling the one human medic currently on duty. Thankfully their wounded only consisted of two pilots who were being treated for minor burns after a fuel accident, so she didn't feel so bad about borrowing a droid and a hovering stretcher. Finn had followed her and she nearly ran into him again on her way back out.

"What is going on?" he asked. "Who's injured?"

She looked him in the eye. "Kylo Ren, and right now his mother is in the woods trying to keep him alive so I'm sorry Finn but I have to go."

Finn gaped, and she could feel him at her back as she slipped past him and strode down the hall, droid and bed following her.

"Kylo Ren?" he hissed, falling into step beside her. "Why are we helping him?"

Rey pressed her lips together, understanding fully why Finn would have a difficult time with this. He'd had PTSD nightmares for months after his back finally healed and he'd been under Ren and the rest of the First Order's thumb his entire life. She didn't want to belittle his feelings, but she also didn't have much time either. "Because, despite what he did to you and me and most of the galaxy Leia was right about there still being light in him. I felt it. It's the only thing left keeping him alive right now, so really he's not Kylo Ren he's Ben Solo and it's what Han would have wanted."

"He's a war criminal!" Finn insisted. "And the leader of the most powerful sect of the dark side this galaxy currently has! I'm sorry about Leia and I know you're right about Han but Rey—" he grabbed her arm, slowing her for a moment so she'd look him in the eye. "He's dangerous."

"So am I," she said evenly back. "And a war criminal deserves a trial. He has to be alive for that." She pulled away and kept going, now out on the airfield. "Besides, Finn," she said more gently. "I don't think he is the leader of the Knights of Ren anymore. I'm not sure he ever really was. I'm truly afraid there is more to Snoke that we realized."

Finn had gone quiet, presumably shocked by the scene they approached. Leia was in the exact same position, but her hand was resting gingerly over Ben's heart and her eyes were closed.

"Leia?" Rey asked hesitantly, wondering if she was already too late. The droid zipped around her to hover in on its patient. Leia raised her head slowly and blinked, a weary smile on her face. "Is he—" Rey asked, unsure of what Leia's expression really meant.

"He's alive," she said, reluctantly loosing her hold on him so the droid could do its scans and inject him with something that would help stabilize him enough to get him on the hover bed. With care, she and Rey worked together to lay him down, and Rey couldn't help but notice the way Leia held his head until the last second, placing it so gently down she wondered if Leia was having flashbacks to when he was first born.

Rey's eyebrows shot up when the bed detected and began recording a heartbeat and oxygen levels in the blood. The beds were good, but Ben was simply too weak for it to be picking anything up. Or at least he had been—Rey glanced over at Leia, who was moving more stiffly and slowly than usual.

"You gave him some of your life," Rey breathed, astounded. Such a transfer through the force was supposed to be immensely difficult if not impossible—and most often the giving or taking of life energy through the force was a dark power.

"I gave him all his life once, it was no large sacrifice to give him a little more," she said, smiling at Rey and then falling into step by the bed, guiding it and the droid back towards the base. Rey was struck with respect and awe for Leia all at once, but Finn's distressed presence at her side soon drew her attention. He was staring after Leia and Ben with visible tension in his shoulders, his breathing too heavy for having only walked across the airfield. She lay a hand on his tense forearm.

"I'm sorry, Finn. I know this is difficult for you."

Finn pulled away and wouldn't look at her, and even though part of her had expected it it still hurt when he walked away and disappeared into the forest. Rey sniffed and dashed away her tears, wishing Luke was there to help her work through what had just happened. He was back on his island to preserve his presence from Snoke, and even though she could go visit him she felt like she was still too needed here. Leia had Ben and would handle the complex politics around bringing him into the base. For the moment, Rey was free to do as she liked so she went to the only other person she could.

"Rey! I didn't see you at morning ration is everything alright?" Poe asked, his forearms propped on the edge of his cockpit. He had a bulb in one hand and a cloth in the other, clearly in the middle of swapping something out.

She sighed, climbing up to sit on the wing where she folded her legs and held a hand out to him. "Give me something to work on."

He raised an eyebrow but complied, reaching down and coming back with a set of dials that needed recalibrating. He handed them and the needed tool over and Rey accepted them gratefully, turning the pieces in her hand and falling into the soothing act of fixing them.

"I've upset Finn and I'm worried about Leia," she said eventually, and even though her eyes were on her work she knew Poe had paused to listen.

"Okay, what happened?"

"I sensed something this morning, something terrible," she said, pausing in her work and staring at the heavy dials. "I went out to investigate and I found Kylo Ren in the woods. I thought he was dead at first, but when I picked him up to bring his body back I realized he wasn't and now he's in our medbay." She glanced up at Poe to gauge his reaction. He looked shocked but not angry or any other emotion she'd been expecting.

"Okay," he said slowly. "But you wouldn't have brought him here if you didn't think there was a good reason. I know he's Leia's son, but there's more to it, isn't there?"

Rey huffed out a breath and handed back the fixed dials, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. "Yes. There is. Did it ever seem odd to you that he had to fight so hard to use the dark side? He's strong with it, but there was always that conflict." She paused, unsure someone who hadn't used the force would get what she was saying.

Poe nodded though, and seemed to understand. He was ridiculously observant and good at empathy, which was part of the reason he ended up being the one she'd talk to. He was more level than Finn, didn't react as quickly to personal emotions so he was a good listener. Encouraged, Rey continued.

"Even when he killed Han on that bridge, even when he fought me in the woods and every time since, I felt a conflict in him. Like—" she cast around "like someone who's made a mistake and all they want to do is go home but they really do feel like it's too late. I've seen people do it before, not on Ben's scale, but sometimes people make mistakes so bad they just keep digging deeper because it's easier than facing the consequences. Thing is, all the dark side is is consequences. Ben's clearly not afraid of confrontation, so what was so bad that he kept going further into the dark rather than return to the light he so clearly missed?"

Poe shrugged. "I don't know, what?"

"I think his master was forcing him. I think that when Ben first began training something happened that made the dark side more appealing, but once he was there he realized how terrible it really is. The dark is built on fear and pain and a lack of trust, something easy to fall into when you feel like you can't rely on anyone else. Luke hasn't talked about it but I think Ben felt betrayed and resolved to draw his energy from himself and the dark, rather than trust in other people again. That's when he became Kylo Ren. He saw the strength his grandfather wielded and he thought it protected him from having or needing other people, let alone a family."

"Okay, so for a while he goes off on his own and he finds a dark side master," Poe said, nodding and tucking a cloth into his back pocket. He climbed out of the cockpit and settled on the wing next to her, his legs hanging off the edge. "So what changed?"

"I think he knew that it was too late to leave Snoke and do it alive," Rey said, something that had been nagging at her ever since that day on the bridge when Ben hadn't refuted Han's statement about what would happen to him. He knew his master was using him. "Snoke knew Ben's family history and sensed the power he was capable of and he persuaded him that he was better off with a new master. By the time Ben figured out what was really going on it was too late for him to go back. All he could do was grow stronger through the darkness until—"

Poe's brow was furrowed. "Until what, Rey? There's something else to this, isn't there? Why was it too late after he'd started training with Snoke and not before? Shouldn't he stand a better chance at fighting a dark side user after he knew about the dark side and the light?"

"He should have, yes," Rey agreed. "There's piece missing."

"But you have a theory," Poe pressed.

Rey pressed her lips together. "Thank you Poe," she said, hopping off of the wing. She no longer just wanted to see Luke, she needed to see him.


	3. A Memory

Wow another awesome batch of reviews! Thank you guys so, so much. I hope you know what every single one means to me. This next chapter happened because of all of you, but you can thank IronManSaidPinata because it was their final push that gave me the spark to write this even though it's late and I should be sleeping. Please enjoy, and I promise we will be getting back to Rey and the others in the next chapter.

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Leia was alone with her son in a locked room, and all she could do was weep. Weep with grief for what had happened to him during his fall into the dark. Weep for what the dark had done to him in the end, weep for the pain and the loss he had inflicted, and weep for the raw joy that he was home. The expressions she'd gotten when she'd brought him inside were varied and none of them were positive, but those present didn't dare oppose her either.

"We can't have him in the medbay," the medic on duty had said, a look of hardness in his eyes as he watched Kylo as though he was faking and would rise any moment to strike them all down.

"Then we will move a bed to my quarters, and we will lock him there. I am to be his sole guard and caretaker until he is well enough to stand on his own and face whatever trial the council decides on," she said, and through her reserved nature and commanding posture her authority left no room for argument.

The medic seemed reluctant to even give up the supplies necessary, so it was Leia with the help of a mute medical droid that took Ben down halls until they reached her quarters. Ben would need to remain in the medical bed for his rib cage to repair properly, so she placed the berth right next to her own bed.

She switched on the scanner and focused on the calibrations, taking a prick of Ben's blood and setting it in a tray. The bed accepted the blood and began scanning him, using his undamaged DNA and crosschecking it with the current state his body was in. Its soft, blue diagnostic glowed up from beneath Ben's back, making it look like he was resting on a chip of light. Leia slipped an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, securing the strap and refusing to let herself linger in his soft hair.

The droid hovered over him, doing its own calculations and communicating with the bed in a silent exchange, a whir of needles and measurements working to stabilize Ben's weakened body and lend strength to his tired heart.

It would take nearly an hour for the bed to determine the proper course of action so Leia busied herself by clearing anything that wasn't completely necessary for Ben's care out of the room. She would entrust the items to Rey later, but for now she locked them in the closet, knowing Ben was too weak to get at or use any of it.

That done, she changed out of her more military clothing and into robes she hadn't worn in public in a long time, robes that she'd first begun to wear when she was pregnant with Ben. They were soft and comfortable, a drape of hushed colors that helped calm her. She wrapped the sash and tucked it with care, an unsteady breath leaving her as she reached up and pressed at her hair, making sure it wouldn't come lose.

The droid was reaching for Ben's tunic with its knife arm when Leia approached, but she held a hand up, waving it away. "I will undress him. Work on figuring out what he needs," she said. The droid backed up and obeyed.

Leia settled her hands on Ben's chest, pulling gently at his robes and unfastening them layer by layer. His chest pressed weakly against her fingers as she worked with every breath he took, and she knew she hadn't loved a sound or a feeling more since the day she'd first heard him cry and held him in her arms. With great care she took away each layer of dark cloth until he was bare to the hip, the ghastly damage around his throat and deep in his chest all too apparent.

She did not look at it and continued to work, folding the dark robes that were stiff in places with his blood and setting them aside with care. If he wanted them back he would have them. She would stitch them back together in the places she'd cut to remove them without hurting him further, and she would let him have them. She wasn't going to send any part of him away ever again.

She did the same with his belt, his boots, and his trousers, keeping him covered as she changed him into the soft medical pants not for her sake but for his. She could see nothing but her little boy as she dressed him, but she knew he would feel the deepest shame to know that she'd stripped away the dark that he wore like armor. She was grateful he didn't have his helmet with him. She wouldn't have discarded it, but it would have haunted her all the same.

She took a basin of warm water and a fresh cloth from her private bathroom and set the bowl near his shoulder, taking her time to wring the water and make sure it was a comfortable temperature. She began at his head, tenderly wiping away the blood smearing his forehead and tangling his hair. She combed her fingers through his hair and worked out the knots, supporting his head like she had when he was an infant, careful not to move his neck as the droid lay down a cooling gel to ease the swelling and stop the terrible rasp that came with every breath. Gradually, as she continued to bathe him stroke by careful stroke, his breathing quieted and some of the tension Leia wouldn't acknowledge eased in her back. She gave him the smallest of smiles and stroked his cheekbone.

"That's my Ben," she whispered.

She turned with a lump in her throat to dab at the cut crossing his chest, blinking through a fog of tears as she saw what a ruin Ben's attacker had made of his body. Parts of his ribs sunk unnaturally and there was hardly a place on his torso not discolored by internal bleeding or severe bruising. The droid had administered several clotting agents and other intravenous therapies, but Ben had a long road ahead if he was going to heal completely. Still Leia kept working until he was free from the grime of battle, and when he was clean she adjusted the temperature in the room so that he'd be warm. The bed was heated by she could feel the chill threatening over his skin.

Finally, having done all she could for the moment, she sat next to him and tried to see who he'd become while he was away. His dominant hand was slathered in burn gel, so she lay a hand over his undamaged one, picking it up and studying the slender, finely strung lines of it. His skin was warm and soft despite his age, and that only made it harder for her to see him as the fully fledged creature he'd chosen to become. He looked so very young and honest in his vulnerability, something he'd worked hard to bury every conscious moment since he'd left home.

She turned his hand over and spread her own against it, marveling how the last time she'd done that he'd been barely able to fit his fingertips half way to hers. Now she was much smaller, and the callouses that marked the places he held his saber too tightly (she had a brief flashback to his early training, when he'd learned to fight with either hand. Clearly he'd kept that skill) rubbed against her skin. She closed her fingers to fit in the gaps between his and rubbed her thumb back and forth.

He had Han's strength and her elegance, and he'd grown into a powerful figure that could be beautiful if he'd only let the light touch him again. She looked at his face, at the slope in his nose he'd inherited from Han, at the long, thick lashes he'd inherited from her, and at the lightsaber scar he'd gotten from Rey. His hair, damp though it was from her ministrations, lay feathered and thick against his cheek and the table, and she let herself stroke it back this time, remembering countless nights she'd done the same to ease him from nightmares made too strong and too terrible by his force sensitivity. It was those nights she'd felt so out of her depth, those nights she'd come closer and closer to her decision to send him to Luke.

She swallowed and her eyes misted again, the light dying to a softer glow underneath him as the bed finished its scan. It gave a quiet hum and then the hairs on her arm prickled as the bed put up a field that would begin the process of putting Ben Solo back together. The droid had been monitoring its patient's brain waves and heartbeat the entire time it had been hovering around him, but only when the bed switched to actual healing did it begin transmitting sound.

Most droids were programmed to record the heart the same way most standard equipment did, with the peaking line of an EKG and the quiet beep. This droid had been left in an alternate setting, the sensor it had attached to Ben's chest looping back with the bed and providing a much more thorough reading of his vitals. Instead of a line, the droid was displaying a detailed ultrasound of Ben's heart in real time, the flashing indicating where the assailant had bruised so deep he had damaged the precious muscle.

Leia covered her mouth at the damage, but she was even more overwhelmed when the sound clicked and she realized that she was hearing her son's heartbeat for the first time since she'd carried him in the womb. In an instant she was back in her room with Han, clinging to his hand with nervousness as the droid put a sensor to her stomach and let her hear her baby's fluttering heartbeat for the first time. She'd cried then too, overwhelmed with the entire concept of being a mother, of holding a life inside herself that was her and Han and someone new all at once.

She felt weak all over as she finally succumbed to the emotion and she wept, clinging to Ben's hand and listening to the slow, matured thump of his life, wondering what his heart had sounded like at each stage in his growth, wondering why that hadn't seemed important while he'd been with her.

She felt suddenly that something had been lost, that if only she'd known his heart at every age, if only she'd seen him grow up then things would be different. He'd skipped from that hummingbird rhythm at his beginning to this broken tempo so many years later and all she could do was plead with the light that this not be his end. She had missed so many heartbeats, so many moments, so many smiles and tears and scrapes and accomplishments. The thought that she might never hear what his heart sounded like when healed and whole, that she might never get to see the beauty of his talents in the force and as a warrior, broke the last of her resolve and she leaned against the bed, clinging to his hand like he might vanish at any moment. She sobbed softly, and for the first time since his death she felt a longing for Han so great it ached.

"You should be here," she whispered. "He can't come back on his own. He needs both of us." She looked up at Ben's face through her tears and ran her free hand across his hair. It curled against her the way Han's had when she used to bury her fingers for a kiss and she drew a shaky breath. "I need both of us."


	4. A Confession

Woah buddy the reviews. I am so blessed by every one of them, but the ones that go into detail about the things you guys caught or the lines that hit hard just make my entire week. I wanted to have a chapter up on Monday, but it didn't happen and I'm sorry so I tried to make this one a little longer. Parts of it don't feel quite as smooth as I'd like, but I did some polishing so I think it's good to go.

A few small things first though-I've had questions about ships. There will be no ships. The only ships here will be cannon and mentioned in passing (pretty much just Han and Leia). I am not interested in starting a shipping war. Ship what you like, but there is a ton of Reylo out there and part of the reason I'm writing this is because I want more stories that focus on other kinds of relationships. You should also know that my knowledge of Star Wars is strictly the films and a tiny bit of Wikipedia-ing. Therefore this fic will be built off of headcannons and observations I've made from that material.

I've also done some more plotting and it's fair to say I have no idea when this will end. I had a few things click into place at work tonight and now I have all kinds of bombs to drop so I'll do my best to keep updating so I can drop them. Enjoy!

* * *

The air coming off of the sea was cold, and Rey was glad she'd expanded on her wardrobe since her first trek out to the island. Her feet sunk into the damp earth as she walked up to the shelter just fringing the caves Luke had made into his home, and for all her reciting and pondering the entire flight she still wasn't certain how she was going to ask or what she was going to say.

She knew her question, but she was afraid Luke wouldn't want to answer it. She was tempted to keep on re-working the question over and over until it resembled something Luke might consider answering, but she realized how manipulative and un-Jedi that idea was and she kept rejecting it. She just had to ask him.

When she crested the hill she saw him sitting just outside of his cave, taking a long drink out of a little tin cup that was at least as battered as the rock he lived on. There was fish steaming over the fire. She took a deep breath and approached him, trying to let her fear bleed off into the force.

Luke gave a great sigh right as she came on the fringe of his fire and she paused. "I wondered how long it would take after that for you to come and see me." He smiled sadly and looked up at her, holding a second battered cup out to her. "I sensed it wouldn't be long."

Rey took the cup and nodded her thanks, sitting down near him and cradling the warm mug between her hands. "You sensed it too."

He nodded. "Like a spear of ice." He took a deep breath. "I know you want to ask me something I won't want to answer."

Her brow furrowed. "Oh?"

He smiled sadly. "After all this time training you I learned you're never afraid to ask anything, but I can feel the fear you are trying to let go of. The only reason you'd be afraid of asking me something is if you think I won't want to answer." He shrugged a little and poked at his fish. "You're probably right, but I've hidden from what happened and what I know long enough." He looked at Rey. "Ask me anything, I swear to you I'll answer."

Rey could feel her heart suddenly begin to pound, but she kept her eyes on her master and spoke the words anyway. "Master, you told me once that the transfer of life through the force is a rare and very dark power, but you implied that someone had once mastered it. I need to know—could that Sith still live?"

The breath that Luke let out was shaky and he closed his eyes. Rey could feel her master's regret and recoil as he pressed it into the force, steadying himself to talk. When he finally nodded once, she felt a chill go through her.

"There was one," Luke admitted finally. "He became so powerful with the dark side that he figured out how to manipulate the force to change the flow of life. Some Sith claimed he could create life, new life out of the force, but that's impossible. Energy is only transferred. No, what Darth Plagueis did was steal or give the life of one creature to another. First himself, then his apprentice, then anyone he deemed worthy."

"So he isn't just a myth," Rey breathed.

Luke frowned. "You've heard the name before? How? He was strictly kept to the Sith and the Jedi records even before their fall tried to erase him."

Rey blushed and ducked her head. "Only once, and I didn't hear it so much as—feel it."

"Kylo Ren," Luke breathed, realization lighting his eyes. "You sensed Plagueis when you dove into his mind."

She nodded. "If he was so buried, why do you know about him?" she asked, her brow furrowing.

Luke smiled ruefully and looked about to speak, but suddenly he turned his head, as though sensing someone new coming to their circle. Rey looked, but saw no-one. A warm ripple went through the force and she felt it in her entire body.

"My father was a Sith once," Luke reminded her, his eyes still trained away and distant. "And he has refused to let me exile in peace." He looked back at her. "Rey, do you remember speaking with me about those who become one with the force in death?"

She nodded.

"All things go back to the force in the end, but only those who are strong with it can return to us and continue their work. Not everyone can see them, but I think at this level in your progress, you'll be able to." He smiled at the look of shock on her face. "You felt him approach, didn't you?"

"I felt something-" she blinked, stunned at the idea that they could commune with the dead. "Someone," she breathed, eyes wide as the shimmering blue across the fire settled itself on a rock and then solidified into the shape of a young man in Jedi robes, an amused smile quirking his lips. A thin scar marred the flesh near his right eye and something in his bearing was hauntingly familiar.

"Hello."

She blinked. "Hi."

"Rey, this is my father, Anakin Skywalker," Luke said.

She felt a different kind of chill go over her. This was Anakin? This was the man who'd become Darth Vader? If it weren't for the power of his presence in the force she wouldn't have believed it. She'd never felt such a thing in her life, and after battling Kylo and training with Luke she thought she'd understood what a powerful mark in the force felt like. Anakin was different. And yet, so familiar.

"You're Ben's grandfather," she said finally, his familiarity clicking. She could see him in Luke and Leia when she really looked, but Ben—she could really see him in Ben. Perhaps it was because age had stolen some of the resemblance from Anakin's children, but the bearing he'd passed onto his grandson was unmistakable, especially his presence in the force. She'd felt part of that presence before. In Anakin it was cooled and peaceful, in Ben it was violent and hot and alive. She wondered if that was a consequence of their paths or of their forms—was Anakin only peaceful now because he was one with the force?

"I've been watching your progress. I'm very impressed," Anakin said.

She felt herself flush, embarrassed suddenly at the thought of him watching her when she wasn't aware of his presence.

Anakin smiled, as though aware of her thoughts. "Don't worry, I'm not over your shoulder all the time."

"No, just over mine," Luke muttered and Anakin's smile grew just a little impish.

"We had so little time while I was alive, I figured you could use the company. Exile gets boring, from what Master Yoda tells me."

Luke rolled his eyes but Rey saw the smile he tried to hide. "I wouldn't know, my exile hasn't been typical."

Anakin chuckled.

"So you just hang around all the time?" Rey asked, mildly unsettled by the idea. "Is that really all there is to do when you die, follow the living around?" She thought that sounded miserable.

The ghost shook his head, laughing. "There's more to it than that, but I have a lot of family so I check up on them. Sometimes I miss being flesh and blood. Yoda and Obi-wan lecture me about it but I can't help it." He shrugged. "I miss flying. Traveling through the force just isn't' the same." He paused, the fond smile faltering on his lips. "I've actually spent a lot of time with Ben," he admitted softly, and Rey felt the sorrow Anakin bore for his grandson. "But after that swell of power I knew Luke would be looking into it and I wanted to be here for that."

"I can tell you what you want to know about this Sith, Rey, but Anakin will be able to give you more," Luke said. A line of pain seemed to cross his forehead, but he didn't back down. A similar look of regret twisted Anakin's expression and he sighed, glancing at the ground.

"Rey, the first thing you need to understand is that the dark side is very powerful, and it promises much when you get near to it." He looked up and she could see the pain in his eyes that lingered even years after its end.

"It seduces, and the power it promises is real—you just have to be willing to destroy everything and everyone around you to take it. When you become a Sith you're on no-one's side but your own, not even your master's. Darth Sidious claims that Darth Plagueis was killed in his sleep, but that's not completely true. He was struck down, but he didn't die. He pulled life from those around him and continued to suck on it until he gained strength, waiting in the shadows for his traitorous apprentice to meet his end. When he finally did, Plagueis waited for the new generation of force-sensitive children, lusting after the most powerful one to become his new apprentice. He found that in Ben."

Rey swallowed, feeling the cold grow in her stomach. "What happened?"

"Plagueis watched Ben grow up, sensed the fear inside him, the struggles with inadequacy and he seduced him away from the light. When you become part of the darkness Rey, you either become its master or you become its slave. Plagueis promised Ben power and a release from his pain, but when those promises had been granted Plagueis struck. He began tapping off of Ben's power little by little, drawing it into himself to extend his life and strengthen his hold on the force. For a long time, Ben didn't know."

"And by the time he figured it out, it was too late," Rey said.

Anakin nodded. "You go far enough into the dark you have to keep going. Ben is simply too strong in the force for Plagueis to risk losing. If Ben were to turn against Plagueis, Plagueis would kill him."

Rey tried to swallow the sudden lump in her throat. "So I was right, Ben didn't want to become what he did. He didn't want to kill Han."

Anakin seemed to consider a moment, his chest rising and falling with a contemplative breath. "Rey, you must understand that everything Ben has done was still his choice and his to bear when it comes to consequence. Manipulation was the reason he went to the dark, but no-one controlled his hand. He wanted to become Kylo Ren, but killing Han was one of the hardest things he's ever done. He thought it would send him far enough into the dark that he could build in his strength and overcome Plagueis at last, but instead his grief weakened him."

"You can sense all of that?" Rey asked.

"Some of it I saw, some of it I sensed, but most of what I know I know because he talks to me," Anakin said sadly. "Not me, exactly, and he doesn't know I'm there, but every time he talks to Vader I listen. I listen and I try to tug him back, but he resists it so carefully. He expects me to linger in the dark and so when he feels the light he pulls away from me."

Rey felt the strangest desire to comfort Anakin, but what could she do or say to a Jedi long dead? He was part of the force now, she couldn't offer him anything. She pressed her lips together and tried to let her sympathy bleed into the force where Anakin might feel it.

"He's been stronger at every turn," she said carefully. "Every time we've fought I've felt it—why would Plagueis risk letting him get that powerful?"

He shrugged sadly. "The lust for power clouds judgment, and Plagueis' position gives him an advantage no other Sith master has ever had—the stronger his apprentice, the stronger he becomes. He learned after I overthrew Sidious, and he's been draining Ben of his living energy little by little his entire life. He's keeping him below his full potential. The life inside of someone young and strong with the force is a very powerful thing. Plagueis is drunk off of Ben's abilities."

"He finally realized, didn't he? That Plagueis has been draining him, That he wasn't going to be free?" Rey asked, a lump forming in her throat.

Anakin nodded gravely. "Only Ben will be able to tell you exactly what happened. I wasn't there when he was attacked and he's been harder and harder for me to read these past few years, but that wave of power we all felt was the bond between Ben and Plagueis breaking."

Rey stared into her cup, slightly unnerved by how much she'd guessed herself. "Snoke has been Plagueis all along," she whispered. "And Ben has been his life support." She looked up at Luke and Anakin, her brow furrowed. "So why is Ben still alive?"

 **SWSWSWSW**

"Why is he still alive?" Finn was seething, pointing at the door to Leia's quarters where he learned Kylo Ren was. The only thing that was holding him back was Poe's hand on his chest.

"Finn," Poe tried to reason. "We kill him we're no better than he is. He deserves medical care and then a trial, just like any prisoner."

Finn's shoulders tightened and he huffed an angry breath, batting Poe's hand away from his chest. "Not every prisoner can throw people around the room. Not every prisoner can freeze a laser blast or is responsible for an entire star system's destruction!"

"Finn-"

"NO POE!" Finn exploded, jabbing his finger towards Poe's face. "I don't think you get it! I've seen what that guy can do first hand. I've seen him hurl people across a room with a gesture. I've seen him freeze people and the screams from the prisoners he mentally shredded are burned into my ears. Once I saw him get so angry that he clenched his fist and a man's heart stopped right on the bridge. He threw Rey against a tree, killed Han Solo! The scar in my back still burns sometimes, especially when it's cold," he said, his voice breaking near the end. He blinked furiously, angry at the tears that had risen unbidden. Poe's brow twisted in sympathy and he put his hand on Finn's shoulder.

"Finn, I know what he did to you. I know what he did to Rey and Han and I've been on the receiving end of his interrogations. I know. But we have to be better than him. We have to get rid of the First Order, not replace them."

Finn's jaw worked and he looked away, his breathing unsteady as he tried to stop crying. He dashed away his tears with an angry hand and Poe let him, just gripping his shoulder and waiting.

"You don't have to go anywhere near him," Poe assured him. "If Rey or Leia need help with him I'll go."

"It won't make a difference," Finn said, finally getting himself under control.

Poe's brow furrowed. "Why not?"

"Because I know he's there. Because that pressure of fear that I lived under most of my life working for him is back. He doesn't belong here, Poe."

"You're not working for him any more and you never will," Poe said firmly. "He is a prisoner and might not make it even with our help. He's barely strong enough to stay alive. Right now, he's not a threat. You trust Rey and General Organa, right?" he pressed.

Finn nodded. "Yeah," he sighed, looking suddenly very tired. "I do."

"Rey wouldn't have brought him back here if we couldn't handle him. Besides, after what happened we might need him."

Finn raised an eyebrow, scoffing. "Yeah we need him, we need him like I need a hole in the head."

"Well you'd look a little funny with a hole in your head but I won't judge," Poe said, shrugging. Finn actually smiled at that and huffed a laugh.

"Okay then surprise me. What could we _possibly_ need from Kylo Ren?"

"Someone beat him and then dropped him near our base. Whoever can beat up Kylo Ren is not someone I want to meet without a lot of preparation, and if he dropped Kylo by the base then that means he knows we are here. How long do you think it'll take before Snoke decides to show up on our doorstep? If Kylo wakes up we have a much better chance of knowing what's coming."

* * *

The idea that Anakin might be the light Kylo keeps feeling was a tumblr idea. I'm just borrowing it because I think it's legit.


	5. A Turn

I can't say enough how much your reviews and your genuine interest and patience with this story mean to me, especially since it's shaping up to be potentially much longer than I'd previously anticipated. Please enjoy this next installment.

* * *

Leia was startled awake with a harsh knock against her door. She straightened slowly, wincing as pain shot through her neck and back. She'd fallen asleep next to Ben again. Rey had been gone for three days talking with Luke and still there was nothing to hint what had happened or what might be coming for them. The angry medic had taken the droid back the night before and Leia made do with the bed, tracking Ben's vitals and administering the assigned drugs herself. What she didn't like was the lack of someone to monitor him while she was away or asleep, and that's when BB-8 had volunteered his services. The brave little BB droid was sitting in the corner, his scanners trained on Ben and poised to wake her should anything change. She smiled wearily at him and received a kind, soft whistle in response.

"I'm alright," she assured him, getting up and going to the door. She pressed the key next to the door and looked up at the four men standing in her doorway. "Yes?"

"You're compromised General Organa so I'll just get straight to the point," the leader said, his arms crossed and his expression dark. "We are not going to spend any more resources on keeping Kylo Ren alive."

Leia straightened up a little more and her eyes went hard. "He's a prisoner, I am using minimal resources on him to begin with. I am doing nothing against protocol and this is not your decision to make."

"He's your bastard son and a mass murderer," the man snapped back. "Your precious trial is a formality and it will end in his execution. You're not fit for duty and someone has to have the balls to say it so here I am. You need to step down and you can start by getting out of my way while I do what everyone else on this base is thinking." He pulled a blaster from his holster and held it up, aiming at Ben's head. Leia stepped between her son and the blaster, her expression darkening as well. The lights gave a flicker.

"Holster that weapon," she said firmly. "That's an order."

The man's lip curled. "You're not giving the orders anymore, _general_."

He aimed his pistol past Leia and his finger tightened on the trigger. That's when Leia punched him. The man staggered back in surprise and she slapped her hand against the door controls, locking the room down. It wasn't enough. There was angry shouting and cursing from the other side and in moments the men were prying the door open. Leia went to comm for backup but the comm to her room had been cut.

These men had been planning this all along, prepared to break her door down if need be. Leia went to her storage closet and hit the code quickly, retrieving a blaster of her own and taking her place in front of Ben's bed. BB-8 whistled with a startled concern and Leia glanced at the droid. She didn't have time to give him orders or reassurance when the door wrenched violently open and blaster fire came through the smoke. She shot back, and was only vaguely aware when BB-8 went racing past her and out into the base.

Sparks rained around her and it was with a sick shock that she realized they were coming from Ben's life support console where a blaster bolt had left a charred wound that gaped the metal.

SWSWSWSWSW

Rey was chewing her lip, her feet tucked up under her at the control center for the _Millennium Falcon._ She was sitting in space just inside the forest moon's orbit, trying to decide what she was going to do when she landed. It was a little more freeing up here, where she had the stars in a blanket around her and no one could come up to the cockpit and knock on the glass wondering why she was taking so long to come out. Her discussion with Luke and Anakin had dropped off of anything immediately useful after Anakin had revealed what happened to the best of his knowledge. They didn't know why Kylo was still alive or what they'd all do if Snoke came back for him.

It was a serious dilemma, and she knew that the longer Kylo Ren was in their base the more angry people would amass outside General Organa's door.

At that point though, Rey was convinced they _needed_ him, as absurd as that felt to think. How else were they gonna find out what Snoke was planning? The hard part would be to get a bunch of angry resistance fighters to hear that and then not tear him apart long enough for him to help. If he was even inclined to. She groaned and rubbed at her forehead. She'd been calculating the entire trip back and she still hadn't factored in what would happen if really was Kylo who woke up and not the Ben she felt lingering inside him. She huffed a sigh and tried to let the tension bleed off into the force. Worrying wasn't going to change anything and she could only plan so much. Better to land the ship and see what was happening before going any further.

When she landed she wasn't surprised to see Poe come running up, but she was surprised at the worried expression and the way he beckoned her down with a frantic wave. His lip was split and he looked roughed up, as though he'd been in a fight. She scrambled out of her seat and toward the landing ramp, a million bad scenarios flooding her mind.

"What happened?" she exclaimed, grabbing his forearms to slow herself as he met her half way up the ramp. He was gulping air and it took a moment for him to catch it back enough to answer her. That alone concerned her more—Poe kept in great shape and normally had excellent lung capacity.

"A few—of the men-didn't agree—with General Organa," he gasped, ducking his head as he worked to get his breath back. "They attacked her quarters. Broke the door, attacked Kylo. But I need you to come with me right now, I'll tell you the rest on the way."

Fear struck through her and she didn't have the presence of mind to let the force take the brunt of it as she fell into a fast stride next to Poe. "Is he still alive? Is Leia okay?"

"She has a cut in her forehead but I got to them both in time. I was able to fight the attackers off and Finn restrained them. They're in lockup right now and Chewbacca is standing guard by my quarters—we had to move Leia and Kylo there after the damage. And yes, he's alive but we don't think for very much longer which is why we tried to contact you."

"I was out of range, I assumed-" she felt guilty suddenly but Poe was rounding a corner and waving his clearance to let them into the base so he didn't see. She'd never imagined things would go so bad so quickly. "What can I do?" she asked as they both broke into a run towards Poe's quarters. "I'm no healer."

"You might have to be," Poe said grimly, slowing his stride only when his door came into view. The wookie and Finn were standing either side of it, blaster and bowcaster in hand. Rey felt a surge of immense pride go through her for both individuals. She knew what a testament of faith and love towards Leia them guarding Kylo was. Especially after she'd seen the scar left by Chewbacca's bowcaster and the saber strike up Finn's back. She touched Finn's hand on her way past him, shooting him a grateful look. He only nodded back and she tore herself away from his eyes to focus on the scene in front of her.

Leia had her hands on her son, who looked dead already. He was pale and his vitals were only present on the monitor. Rey could see no sign of breath from him. She went quickly to the bed and touched Leia's hand, causing her head to come up quickly. The pain in Leia's eyes made Rey's breath catch and her own eyes pooled with tears.

"Leia," she said softly, squeezing the older woman's hand. "I'm so sorry."

"He doesn't have much time," Leia said, clasping Rey's hand like it was a lifeline. "I need you to help me, he's beyond what our medicine can do now."

Rey shook her head, her brow furrowed. "I can't—I'm sorry Master Luke never got that far and he said that healing was a very difficult thing to accomplish. I mended a cut and helped heal a concussion once—nothing more severe than that."

"It is," Leia admitted, but she didn't let go of Rey's hand. "But I studied the force as well. Not to be a Jedi, but to understand the power I have. Healing is something that came easier to me. It is a power found only in the light, and it's about trusting. About letting go. Rey, I can't heal him myself. I need you to combine your abilities with mine and help him back. If we don't try, he will die. He's not even strong enough to be moved into a bacta tank."

Rey held Leia's gaze, warring with herself for a few pounding heartbeats. Finally, she looked down at Ben's still face and released a shaky breath. She nodded. _I can do this_. She felt tension leave her and evaporate into the force and she squeezed Leia's hand with more confidence. "Guide me?" she requested, looking at Leia again.

"Thank you," Leia breathed, and she took hold of Rey's hand and guided her to lay it against the center of Ben's chest. His skin was clammy and she wondered what he was clinging to that he hadn't died yet. Leia kept her hand resting over Rey's and reached her free one to cradle one side of Ben's head. When she was prompted with a nod, Rey mimicked the gesture.

She felt Leia's presence brighten as a focal point in her mind and she followed that presence with her own, her physical body going quite still. Below them, Ben's presence was cold and flickering—something you never wanted to feel from a living person. The force never felt cold unless the person harboring it was sick or dying. The dark side had a bite to it, but it was passion and heat. The light side sometimes felt cool, but this frost had nothing to do with the light.

She sensed tendrils of Leia twining with her like the clinging anchors on a vine and Rey returned the gesture until she almost felt that they were one person. It was a linking of their minds in the deepest meditation Rey had ever experienced and through that she could sense that Leia knew what to do, knew where to go to piece Ben back together. Rey allowed her to lead, feeling the force grow stronger around the two of them with every new layer of peaceful surrender. It was as though they were a conduit, directing the force where Ben needed it most.

She lost herself to the force, had no real sense of her own body or location or time. All she felt was the warm power pouring through the two of them and cascading through their hands, battling the ice inside of Ben into a thaw. Gradually Rey became aware of his body and every torn ligament, every crushed cell and splintered bone. She felt the cracked ribs at the deepest level, knew suddenly without ever having learned what bruised heart muscle felt like.

Just as she attained this knowledge something warm spread itself over the damage and she watched the threads of muscle swell and firm up again, joining in to restore a strong pulse. From there the healing rushed through his veins and she watched in awe as their combined meditation took the straightened bones held in place by the bed's field and quickly melded them. Marrow flushed the healed spaces and spindles of white bone like spiderweb knit his chest wall back together. She felt ligaments ease their unnatural strain and nerves quieted their frantic spasm as pain signals dulled. For the first time in days his muscles pulled together in the involuntary urge to take a deep breath and oxygen flooded his blood, infusing his force signature with a fresh heat. Deep in his brain, new neurons flashed bright and healthy, and all at once his presence in the force surged back with the deluge of new signals and oxygen.

She felt Leia withdraw slowly and as they parted their connection to one another and to Ben fell away like gold thread. Rey blinked hazily, her body numb, exhaustion overtaking her. She only barely realized her vision was back and her trance was over when she slumped boneless against the table.

SWSWSWSW

When she woke she was swathed in blankets and someone was holding her hand.

"Rey? Rey! Thank god," Finn breathed, his excitement apparent in the way he squeezed her hand and jumped up to look at her properly. She blinked hazily and frowned, focusing on him.

"Finn?" she said, her voice a rasp. "What happened?" She looked around and then sat up a little. "Why am I in the medbay?"

"You and Leia took quite the hit healing—him," Finn finished, seemingly torn about what to call their prisoner. "Leia's still passed out, but her vitals have been steady."

He glanced over at another bed where Leia was similarly tucked away. Rey blinked, wide-eyed. "How long was I out?"

Finn sobered a little. "Four days."

"Four _days_?" Rey exclaimed, the urgency to get out of bed and handle the chaos that must have happened in that time making her tense against Finn's restraining hand.

"Yes and everything is okay. Nobody else has tried anything and Chewbacca, me, and Poe have all taken turns guarding the room. BB-8 has been monitoring him and updating us for when you woke up. He's stronger by the way. His ribs are healing rapidly and his heartbeat and brainwaves have been healthy."

"And we haven't been attacked?" she asked, incredulous.

Finn shook his head, his smile full of relief and disbelief. "No, that's the weird part. Nobody. I keep waiting for it, it's making me nervous."

Just then Poe came running in, and Rey wondered if him being the out of breath errand boy was going to be his new job. This time though, he looked happy, if a little frazzled. He bent over, hands braced on his knees before he delivered his message.

"So, he's waking up-."


	6. A Deal

Okay I haven't really had time to re-read this but I have to leave for work in like five minutes so I wanted it up before I left. Apologies for mistakes. This story got so away from what I'd originally planned on investing into it, that's why I just didn't write for a month. I'm sorry about that but I've been working full time and I have my personal writing projects and I hate to have any of my writing feel like a job. Fanfic this past bit was work, an obligation instead of something fun so I put it off. That being said, I'm flattered so many people like this and I'm grateful for your understanding. I'm not sure this story will go on much longer because I really don't want to write a novel, but I'll try to wrap it up at least fairly neatly.

* * *

The scramble to get to the medical wing was nothing short of organized chaos, or at least that's how it felt to Rey. In reality it was her tripping as she launched out of bed, bare feet hitting the cold floor and causing her to startle. She'd been laying down too long and the only thing that stopped her from just hitting the ground in her vertigo was Finn's quick thinking.

"Waking up or woken up?" she asked, still half standing under Finn's power. Her hand gripped his bicep but her mind was spinning with a mess of protocol. Kylo was a prisoner. Leia was their general and his mother. _Leia_ should be the one handling this.

"Waking up," Poe clarified. "As in not quite conscious but ever monitor including BB-8 is telling me that's not going to last."

"Okay, um, let's go," Rey said, scrambling and finally realizing she was the only one who was on hand to handle this. Leia was passed out and the rest of the people not trying to kill or at least ignore Kylo was already there. She'd fought him a hundred times but now the thought of finding out what had happened had her scrambling for what to do. He was easy while he was unconscious.

Minutes later and Rey was dressed and standing in the spare room where Kylo had been moved. She stood over him, watching as his breathing grew more pronounced and the jagged blue of the monitor tracking his vitals sped up. For the first time since finding him in the woods she saw him furrow his brow and take a breath that was conscious, his head turning slightly to the side as he woke up. His eyes opened and he blinked for a few times, staring somewhere in the region of her belt where her saber was hung. She'd built her own a long time ago, letting Luke have his back.

Slowly, his eyes traveled up to rest on her face. He just stared at her, his expression blank until he finally moved his hand to rest on his ribs and closed his eyes. "It worked," he breathed.

Whatever she expected his first words to be, it hadn't been that. She stared at him, then glanced at Poe, who was standing across the bed with his hand on a blaster just in case. Finn and Chewbacca were outside again acting as guards, though now it felt like they were there to keep Kylo contained instead of the rest of the base.

"What worked?"

Kylo's lips twitched into something that looked like a humorless smile and he opened his eyes again. They were impossibly dark, something Rey somehow managed to forget between each fight with him. He reached up a hand and caught hers with surprising strength, and before she quite realized what he was doing her mind flooded with memories not her own.

 _General Hux was insufferable, but he was as disgusted with Snoke as Kylo was. They had different reasons, but that didn't matter._

" _You're certain you can pull this off?" he asked, one ginger eyebrow raised with disdain._

" _If I don't we'll both be too dead to care," Kylo snapped back. His arms were crossed as the two men stared each other down._

The room they were in was shadowy and nebulous, and Rey wondered if Ben was strong enough with the force that he could project a view outside of himself or if this vision was from someone else's mind entirely.

" _Your death is already set up," Kylo was saying, going through a shelf and putting barely-defined objects into a case. "I went off in a fit, finally killed you in my illness and the troopers didn't have enough to bring back to bury." He turned and shoved a case into Hux's hands, his expression hard, his eyes like chips of obsidian. "Which will be true if you don't keep your end of things"_

 _Hux's lips thinned and his eyes narrowed, but he took the case and nodded curtly. "You're a special form of suicidal, Ren."_

 _Kylo narrowed his eyes. "We'll see." He turned his back on Hux and rolled up his sleeve, jabbing himself with a needle and injecting the contents in a fluid motion. Hux watched from behind with a grim fascination before Kylo turned in a blur of his shadowy robes and the scene changed._

 _The next impressions Rey got were a haze of red, black, heat, pain, of trying to breathe and trying to remember when breathing was easy, of feeling completely isolated from everything that made you strong. There was a furious, crushing presence surrounding Kylo's body, damaging it and his force presence with biting blows and desperate, angry scrabbling, like someone digging for something they knew they weren't going to find. Finally, after torment beyond what Rey could imagine surviving, the assault stopped and Kylo's limp, bleeding body was taken from Snoke's presence._

 _He was dumped unceremoniously to be incinerated with the garbage._

 _That's when gloved hands worked their way under his collar and felt for a pulse. Hux knelt into view, his body solidifying out of the murky light the vision was casting, his mouth moving with words Rey couldn't hear. A few men, storm troopers from the way they carried themselves though they wore no uniform, lifted Kylo and took him to a tiny ship where Hux took one last glance at the base before he strode aboard._

 _Outside of the vision, Rey was aware of Kylo's strength wavering, but he didn't let go. Something deep down told her to trust him and she relaxed, turning her hand to grip his wrist so it wasn't just him holding onto her. She felt something ease in his effort and the final scene played with a sharper image, though everything still flit and flickered like a painted dream._

 _Hux followed Kylo Ren's coordinates, wondering how long the knight had known where the base was and kept it to himself. He strongly suspected it had been about the same time he'd decided to break from his master. He gazed across the planet, so much green, so much wild land, and set the ship down with a careful dance of switches and buttons. Straightening the jacket he still hadn't quite brought himself to take off, Hux went to the back room where the single medic was working to stabilize Kylo._

" _He won't live more than another hour without real care," he said, standing from his place kneeling next to the cargo rack they'd turned into a barely passable sickbed._

" _That isn't our concern," Hux said icily. "We completed our end of things. Now set him down in the grass and forget this planet. If he is fortunate enough to survive and the resistance somehow doesn't put a hole through his skull I don't want to give him any reason to track us down."_

 _Hux was of the strong opinion that if he never saw Kylo Ren again in his entire life it would be too soon, but he accompanied his men down the ramp and oversaw them setting him in the grass anyway. He watched the miserable heap Snoke's apprentice had become and he snorted, shaking his head. Never the less, he bent with the final drug needed and pressed it into Kylo's throat himself, depressing the plunger and straightening up, his pale eyes looking for what he hoped was the last time on the knight's face. "May your force serve you better this time, Ren," he said quietly._

 _Minutes later wind from the engines blew petals and dust across Kylo's body and Hux disappeared._

Kylo's fingers slipped weakly from Rey's wrist and she blinked, shaking away the webs of the vision with a startled expression. Slowly, she let Kylo's wrist go as well, setting his arm down against the bed.

"You did this on purpose," she breathed, staring down at him. He was still conscious but seemed too weary to speak. He only blinked and nodded his head just enough for it to be acknowledgment.

"I'm sorry, he did what on purpose?" Poe interjected. Rey blinked and looked up at him. She'd almost forgotten he was there.

"He's here on purpose. He and Hux got fed up with Snoke," Rey exclaimed, all the hints of emotion and understanding that Kylo had fed her along with the vision unfolding in a timeline that made sense. "He realized that Snoke was using him for his power, so little by little he's been drawing himself away from Snoke, hiding pieces of his force presence away until there was hardly anything left. He let Snoke believe he was drained. Hux didn't like how Snoke was handling things with the First Order and wanted free of him, so he and Kylo made a deal. Kylo would fake Hux's death and help him escape with a defecting group of soldiers still loyal to him, and when Snoke finally tossed Kylo to the side Hux helped him stay alive long enough to get here."

"So Snoke doesn't know where we are?" Poe asked in disbelief. "Kylo planned all of it?"

Rey nodded. "Yes, he did. He made Snoke believe he'd been drained of his power and was no longer useful."

Poe ran a hand through his hair, his eyes wide as he let out a long breath. He looked at Kylo with something like impressed disbelief. "How long has he been working on this?!"

"Since starkiller." It was Kylo that spoke now, his voice raw and exhausted, but his eyes were open again and Rey felt a flare of determination through the force. He was shoring himself up with sheer stubbornness.

"What, really? That long?" Poe said, glancing between Kylo and Rey. "That's _four years_ of planning and pulling apart Snoke's influence."

"It was Han," Rey said softly, seeing the truth in Kylo's eyes even as he turned his head away from her so she couldn't look into them. She could feel the stab of pain and anger from him but he didn't try to stop her talking. "When he killed Han he realized Snoke had been lying to him. Four years is nothing, in the end. Snoke had been draining him for twenty."

"Where is Leia?" Kylo asked, clearly unhappy with the way Rey was sharing his life's story with Poe right in front of him. "I assume she's the only reason I'm alive."

"Buddy, you have no idea," Poe breathed. "She's passed out from doing just that."

Kylo's expression furrowed, and he tensed as though ready to demand an explanation but Rey put a hand on his shoulder to keep him down. "She stopped the others from executing you, yes. So have Poe, and Finn, and Chewbacca, and BB-8 and I. We felt you deserved care and a proper trial. She's been tending you but someone got in, destroyed your life support. We had to work very hard to heal you and she's still unconscious from the effort."

His expression was very difficult for Rey to read, and she wondered if that was because he didn't know how to feel about all of that.

"You gambled your life on us thinking your mother would protect you, didn't you Ben?" she said softly. He shot her a nasty look, but she could see the truth in his eyes. "You just forget that she's more than a piece in your game of survival. She still loves you."

"That's what I bet on," he said nastily, but Rey only furrowed her brow and withdrew her hand.

"You simply didn't bet on still loving her too," she whispered. If he heard her, he pretended not to.


End file.
